Pixel Extenders

In electronic engineering, best practice for signals that go more than a couple feet is to add a differential driver/receiver pair (RS-422/485). These drivers make the signal more immune to noise and allow the signal to be driven further. For pixel data rates (approximately 1MHz), the expected distance is 1000 feet. These also add the benefit of allowing the ground between your lights and controller to vary up to ±7Vdc. By far this is one of the best methods to drive LED smart pixels. It will always work at any distance, the input to the display element is an Ethernet cable and power is through an extension cord. There are a couple controllers available with pixel extenders built in.